Okay, There’s reason for this review;  I was stuck. Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium is what I call a "Nanny." You can be relatively assured as you set your children in front of the great glass tit that, for the next 90 minutes, they will be peacefully occupied, watching a non-threatening, non-violent, practically non-existent film. Now, don’t get me wrong. I often enjoy G-rated films. But eventually, your kids will agree with me--given a choice between this movie and watching "The Lion King" for the eleventeen billionth time, it would be Simba on the tube. I have a confession: The only reason I watched "Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium" was that I was trapped on a seven hour flight, my laptop’s battery was dead, the earphones were free, and, having an exceedingly high pain tolerance for bad films (perhaps brought about by many years of watching B-rated gore films of questionable caliber), I was really just curious to see if Dustin Hoffman could ever make anything worse than "Ishtar."

Scott Kurtz does a fantastic cartoon called PVP. He also hosts, along with Kris Straub, Brad Guigar and Dave Kellett the podcast Webcomics Weekly. I feel that I’ve become a close personal friend just from listening to him rant and give good advice each week.  This week he has been under the weather. So stalkers like me had a perfect chance to pay him back by sending him guest strips until he feels better, or starts drawing again. Some of you reading this are already fans of PVP. You should check it out. It’s one I take in every day. You can see my contribution to his strip here.

I generally enjoy old British horror films that star Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, but I, Monster left me bored. I, Monster is a version of the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde story. Only in this version, there’s a twist by adding in the element of Freudian psychoanalysis. And apparently, the filmmakers didn’t want you to get it confused with the original story, so they gave the characters different names. Dr. Jekyll is now Dr. Marlow. How lame is that? The Lameness continues as Dr. Marlow’s transformation into the monster leaves a lot to be desired. Personally, I don’t think a fellow walking around his lab like he’s high on weed and threatening a mouse with a scalpel is very scary. Now, if he ate the mouse, it would have been a different story. I did enjoy the props as well as the attention given to the campy décor of Victorian England. If this film did anything, it opened the door for other people to do a better version of the Jekyll and Hyde story--without worries that theirs would be the worst one out there. I give it a three

The film Year of the Dog came out in 2007, and my guess is that it didn't even create a blip on your radar. I blame the mega-movie complexes. They have sixteen screens, but fill four of them with the same highly-advertised movie for three weeks. Meanwhile, the lower budgeted films are given only a half-day slot for just one week before they vanish. You can miss a lot of interesting films that way! And this is one of those interesting films, sort of. I enjoy films that don't talk down to their audiences, and films that stick to one tone throughout the entire film. Sometimes, that tone may be a low-key dry humor that will make you smirk more often than laugh, like this movie. I give it a five because it's a decent movie. It's entertaining in its own subdued-yet-tightly-wound-up way. It has no bad points. On the other hand, it doesn't have any big explosions.

I just had to rent Eulogy. In fact, I'll rent any movie that has a Viking Funeral in it. When I was a kid, I always enjoyed watching Viking films, especially the ones with Viking funerals. I now have a personal attachment to Viking funerals. Whenever we asked Grandma how she wanted to be laid to rest, she always said that she wanted a Viking funeral. I'm sure she never guessed that our family would actually manage to do just that! I think that one of these days, I'm going to draw a comic of the whole thing, complete with a homemade Viking ship, remote-control boat, flares, and Disney figurines wearing sombreros. It will be a good story. I also enjoyed the story in this film about a family full of narcissists going through the motions of a funeral. Normally, it would have ranked just average, but that Viking funeral forced me to add another point to its score.

I love getting fan mail. This week a fan named Brok sent me a list of his top ten favorite movies. He hoped I'd seen a few of them and that I would do a review on all of them eventually. I had missed two of the movies on his list, so I added them to my must-see list. I'd already seen the other eight, and I remembered having drawn a movie review of one of them. However, in checking my online archives, it appears that it was never posted. I'm going to remedy that now.

My initial impression of 28 Days Later was not that great. Sure, it used some shocking elements, like having the zombies not "dead" and thus capable of running at people at top speed rather than slowly stumbling around. But those high-speed zombies were featured back in the '80s with The Return of the Living Dead. And contamination as a theme was done even earlier in the '70s with Rabid. So, it did not strike this old gore-hound as anything new. Yet, the film did something I didn't anticipate; it reinvigorated the genre and then a fresh crop of zombie films came to the market. So, I'm going to eat crow and add a few points to what has become a renewed staple for horror fans. It also means that I need to draw a review of the sequel 28 Weeks Later.
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The Holiday is aptly titled. As soon as you start watching it, your brain goes on a holiday. Filled with slightly neurotic and humorous behavior by our female leads, a mild amount of conflict is gently set up to pull at the heartstrings, but not too harshly. You might even think the film is as completely inoffensive and light hearted as a movie can get, with wonderful actors being a treat for the eyes (add one point for that). But you would be wrong. Deep in the heart of this movie, I see some British- and American-bashing going on. For example, take the reactions the women have upon discovering their boyfriends are seeing other women. While the Brit remains his friend and pines away for him for three years, the Yank immediately throws the guy out--and punches him in the nose, twice! That's one point for the Yank. Then, there are their interactions with other people. The Brit goes out and makes friends with everyone in the neighborhood; the Yank bonks the first drunk who says hello. One point to the Brit for being a good girl. Okay, one point to the Yank for being a bad girl. So, because you may be entertained by the little back and forth slurs made on each country, add another point there, too. But the movie ends with absolutely no resolution to anything. There is just a party going on. Okay, so that's a comment on how life should be, but you're still left wondering how the movie was really supposed to end (minus one point for that).

While I enjoyed the dialog of the film Death Proof a great deal, I also enjoyed all of its small hidden details. There were the blatantly obvious posters of past exploitation films, and the not-so-obvious props and backgrounds from those movies. All of those t-shirts and jewelry from the '70s sent me on a flashback to my high school summers and the 7-11 across the street from Edmond's High School, where they sold all that stuff. That flashback got me thinking about the actor Kurt Russell. I practically grew up with Kurt Russell. Back when he was a child star, I was an even younger child. I can't think of a better actor to be cast as stuntman Mike for this film. My reminiscing about pop culture clutter and good ol' Kurt Russell was my inspiration for this strip.

screens and dwindling attendance, the owners were not particularly picky about the quality of movies they showed. And, oh my god, the movies were terrible. It was the beginning of the end. I was back home from college during a vacation break one afternoon, watching Showtime on the television when a preview for a movie I had seen at the Lynn Twin popped on the tube. Suddenly, I had an urge to visit the Lynn Four to see what might be playing. There was rented chain link fence around the parking lot, and the doors were all boarded up. I heard a rumor later that there had been some sort of closing ceremony for the place, some sort of blowout, and that I'd just missed it by a few weeks. It might as well have been a few years. The place was dead.

Watching Planet Terror was like sitting in the Lynn Twin all over again. The horrible quality of the film as it hit the second run theaters and the over-the-top storylines of films that were out there just to appeal to the lowest common denominator of sensationalism, all but made me feel that sensation of the sticky floors in my neighborhood theater. So, I can't help but give this film a few extra points just for taking me back to a place and time that held so many good memories for me.
Check out these links:

http://www.cinematour.com/tour.php?db=us&id=19470

and
http://cinematreasures.org/theater/11477

I believe folks should be honest about their nepotism. Hey, if you don't and encourage your friends just who is left? I think it's covert nepotism which people despise, not the glad-handed old boy network so many of us has come to value. It's in that warm cordial spirit that I watched and now recommend my good friend and buddy Mark Tapio Kine's first feature which he both wrote and directed, Foreign Correspondents. Mark is someone I bumped into on the Internet some years ago. And while we might not be able to pick each other out in a crowded room, we do enjoy the odd written exchange. Which is a good segue into his movie as it is about people who meet via written exchange. But their social awkwardness is far more interesting.

Be sure to check out Mark Tapio Kine's List of 9. It's at http://www.cassavafilms.coms where you can learn about his other movies and projects.

The Usual Suspects is one of those wonderful thrillers that goes a step further than providing a wide variety of twists and turns to the plot. Sure, many of the standard story devices are used, but effectively. You don't feel like your going over old over-used scenarios. And, just as your all settled down with the pattern of delivery, you get the last clue, which throws everything on its head. And while the reveal is just as old of a trick as everything else, it's done in such an inspired manner that you think the writers invented it just for this film.